McDonald should be fit for Doncaster game

25 October 2011 08:32

Coventry City striker Cody McDonald should be fit to play by the weekend and will travel to Doncaster on Saturday.

McDonald opened his Coventry City goal scoring account on Saturday when he put City ahead in the game against Burnley, but had to be replaced just ten minutes after scoring because of a knee injury.

The Coventry City manager Andy Thorn believes that the goal is only the first of many that McDonald will score for his new club.

He told the CT, “Cody will score a lot of goals for this club. It summed up our day when he had to come off because I was looking at Cody thinking we are just starting to see what he’s about and he’s only going to get better.

“He’s a goal threat, gets chances and gets on the end of things from getting in some great positions in the box and just when I was thinking of tweaking our system he had to come off injured, but I was more than pleased with him. He’s looking sharp and fingers crossed he’ll be all right for Saturday.

“I have absolutely no doubt that he and Lukas Jutkiewicz will score goals together. It’s important we stay focused on what we’re doing and the goals will come and everything else will fall into place around it.”

The goal that McDonald scored came as a huge relief to the 25 year old who netted 25 times last season in League Two.

He admitted, “It is a relief. It took me a while to get off the mark at Gillingham, although fortunately I scored early doors at Norwich, but I wasn’t too worried because it was only my fifth game on Saturday, but to get my first is a massive confidence booster and hopefully I can take that into the next few weeks and score again.”

In one of those odd coincidences, in the season that McDonald scored his 25 goals for Gillingham, it took five games to get on the score sheet and he was playing in his fifth game for Coventry when he scored his first for his new club.

McDonald claimed he felt a lot sharper on Saturday than he had done in his previous four appearances until the knee injury occurred.

“I felt a lot sharper on Saturday although I had a little niggle on my knee towards the end,” he said.

“I had a little kick in the first half and ran it off but it started to trouble me later on, but my fitness is something I have been working hard on and apart from the injury I felt quite good.

“When I first came into the team I felt quite fresh but the step up from League Two to the Championship is obviously massive and I wasn’t up to the pace of it, but I have worked quite hard in training over the last few weeks. The manager has helped me with a few extra training sessions and I feel like I am getting right on track now.

“Hopefully if I can notch a few more goals and get a bit more confidence.”